Arts & Entertainment
The Chocolate Chisel Prepares Irish Sweets for St. Patrick's Day
With a variety of seasonal truffles now available, Chocolate Chisel patrons will certainly experience the luck of the Irish.
St. Patrick’s Day has arrived, and in Port Washington is creating some special Irish treats.
Chocolatier John Reichert and proprietor Elizabeth MacCrimmon have been busy preparing a handful of delicacies for the holiday. The shop’s regular menu of chocolates has been dressed up for the occasion with green accents, and a variety of special chocolates are also available.
Their St. Patrick’s day specialties include Irish cream truffles (the most popular among the seasonal chocolates), black and tan truffles, lemon vodka drops and a fresh raspberry filled chocolate, the “Heart ‘O Raspberry for the pure Irish heart,” according to MacCrimmon.
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However, these treats are available for a very limited time. The Chocolate Chisel won’t make them again until next March.
“If it wasn’t once a year, it wouldn’t be exciting,” MacCrimmon explained.
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During their limited availability, MacCrimmon said that these offerings are very popular, and that the Irish cream truffle has been a best seller in the past.
She expects that St. Patrick’s Day will be a big day for business, but the shop seems to have a consistent flow of customers even without major holidays approaching. MacCrimmon said the difference is the Felchin Swiss chocolate the company uses.
A self-proclaimed food snob, MacCrimmon explained that rather than grinding the cocoa beans for seven hours like most commercial companies, the Felchin chocolate is ground for over 60 hours and combined with greater amounts of cocoa butter to get the best possible taste.
Appearance is just as important as taste to MacCrimmon. Prior to opening The Chocolate Chisel two years ago, MacCrimmon and Reichert were professional artists who specialized in the designing, sculpting, and manufacturing of pewter ornaments.
The business partners later moved on to produce chocolate bars for museums, and that’s when the transition to chocolatiers began.
MacCrimmon recalled how she said it would be fun to set a shop to experiment with the production of the chocolate bars, and soon The Chocolate Chisel was in business.
Although pewter and chocolate couldn’t seem like more different media, MacCrimmon explained the two are actually very similar. Both processes require the medium to be melted and poured into molds, and both need an artist’s touch.
“You use the same artistic creativity,” she said.
The Chocolate Chisel will sell its best holiday chocolates from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. St. Patrick’s Day.